Anti-racist scholar-activism

Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Laura Connelly

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781526157959
• eBook ISBN: 9781526157942
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Anti-racist scholar-activism raises urgent questions about the role of contemporary universities and the academics that work within them. As profound socio-racial crises collide with mass anti-racist mobilisations, this book focuses on the praxes of academics working within, and against, their institutions in pursuit of anti-racist social justice. Amidst a searing critique of the university's neoliberal and imperial character, Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly situate the university as a contested space, full of contradictions and tensions. Drawing upon original empirical data, the book considers how anti-racist scholar-activists navigate barriers and backlash in order to leverage the opportunities and resources of the university in service to communities of resistance. Showing praxes of anti-racist scholar-activism to be complex, diverse, and multi-faceted, and paying particular attention to how scholar-activists grapple with their own complicities in the harms perpetrated and perpetuated by Higher Education institutions, this book is a call to arms for academics who are, or want to be, committed to social justice.

1
Problematising the ‘scholar-activist’ label: uneasy identifications

As we indicate in the Introduction, although we will delineate some broad principles and orientations of anti-racist scholar-activism, this book is not intended to be a ‘how-to’ guide. The accounts presented throughout the book show that such an endeavour would not only be incredibly difficult but would belie the nuance, complexity, and multiplicity of what is invoked through the terms ‘scholar-activist’ and ‘scholar-activism’. It is not our intention to present anti-racist scholar-activism as an essentialist entity that can be easily captured and theorised, or to uncritically perpetuate discourses of idealised activism. Nor is it our intention to homogenise our participants, or to ignore the terminologically and conceptually contested nature of ‘scholar-activist’. Indeed, in a variety of ways and to different extents, participants were quick to problematise and question the scholar-activist label.

In this chapter, we consider the uneasiness that the label ‘scholar-activist’ evokes amongst our participants. Their reluctance or hesitance in adopting the scholar-activist identity makes for an interesting starting point given that all of our participants are engaged in the kind of work we might broadly conceive of as anti-racist scholar-activism. In this chapter, we want to show that, ironically, a criticality and wariness of scholar-activist as a label is one of the few consistencies amongst those who might identify and/or be identified by others as an anti-racist scholar-activist. We begin by exploring the perspectives of participants who see utility in adopting a scholar-activist identity, before we problematise the label by examining participants’ concerns over its constitutive elements: ‘scholar’ and ‘activist’. Next, we explore another set of concerns around the scholar-activist identity, this time related to the currency the term carries. This currency, we show, makes the term susceptible to institutional co-optation and to being overclaimed by academics. With these problematics in mind, and notwithstanding some value in the identification, we suggest that scholar-activism is more usefully thought of as something that one does, rather than something that one is.

Claiming a scholar-activist identity

In the introductory chapter, we noted that scholar-activism has utility as a shorthand term to refer to approaches that combine scholarship and activism in pursuit of social justice: it demarcates a distinction from more traditional or hegemonic approaches to academia. It follows, therefore, that ‘scholar-activist’ refers to somebody who combines scholarship and activism in pursuit of social justice, and invokes a similar set of distinctions. The importance of claiming a scholar-activist identity was something that several of our participants emphasised. This was illustrated by Galiev, an early-career academic of colour:

In terms of the scholar-activist identification, I think it has pragmatic use now because we have to identify between us and scholars who don't engage in the struggle. There is a resentment against scholars who don't engage within the wider community or that are able to say these hoity toity things from the ivory tower, but they don't engage in it or they don't acknowledge their class privilege which means that the very things that they're criticising, they're largely immune from. I think at this particular moment, it's important that we distinguish ourselves from that.

For Galiev, his identification as a scholar-activist represents not only a connection to others he sees as being like him but is also based upon a disidentification with, or a disavowal of, what he understands the academy to represent. In this respect, the distinction Galiev draws serves to critique the ivory-towerism that positions the academy as detached from wider society.¹ This critique of the current state of universities – which we discussed in the Introduction – is one that motivates the praxes of many of our participants, whether or not they identify as scholar-activists. For Galiev, it is the wider failures of the university (and other academics) that motivates not only his praxis but his claim to a scholar-activist identity too. In contrast to most ‘traditional’ scholars in higher education (HE), Galiev positions himself and other scholar-activists as being both engaged within wider communities (see Chapter 2), and reflexive about their own (class) privilege. In this sense, the scholar-activist label denotes a particular (counter-hegemonic) orientation – it sets apart the detached academic from the engaged scholar-activist.

Like Galiev, Zami – an established academic of colour – was particularly forthright in advocating for the claiming and usage of the scholar-activist identity. We should ‘make it explicit, name it’, she insisted:

That way it doesn't just name, it forms what it names and [that's] great. Let's have the word activist everywhere but let's [say …] I'm an anti-racist feminist activist-scholar, you know, not just an activist. What are you activist in?

Zami suggests that the scholar-activist identity should be regarded as desirable and something that we are proud to claim. As she indicates, naming scholar-activism is a process of bringing the practice into being: it is, in this sense, performative.² Key here is the idea that we can do things with words, particularly through repetition. This is what Judith Butler conveys when she argues that ‘discourse produces the effects that it names’.³ Thought of in this way, claiming the scholar-activist identity can be a political act in and of itself – which is not to say that it is sufficient alone – and one that functions to relocate scholar-activism from its marginal position in HE. As Zami implores, ‘let's have the word activist everywhere’: let's establish scholar-activist praxis as a norm within the university. As in Galiev's account, there is a conviction that increasing the visibility of scholar-activism, through naming and repetition, can increase its power.

Zami also makes a case for naming the particular political orientation of our work as a way of further distinguishing the scholar-activist identity. In doing so, she perhaps addresses concerns, which we come to later in this chapter, around the breadth of, or lack of specificity in, what could be considered scholar-activist. As she centres the importance of anti-racist and feminist approaches, situated within a theoretical and practical history of resistance – a tradition we began to chart in the Introduction – she marks out the specificity of her orientation and praxis. She insists that her scholar-activism must be anti-racist feminist scholar-activism.

Writing in the Canadian context, though with an eye on the global picture, Tilley and Taylor offer observations prescient to our consideration here. Reflecting on the questions ‘why choose such a label? What is in the name?’, they posit:

A number of people collect together under the umbrella of scholar-activist. There is strength in numbers. When we identify in such a collective way we can find and connect with our allies. We can stand together and work to make visible the limitations of our institutions for promoting social justice and equity goals. We can also support each other as we advance our research and teaching in ways that question the status quo whether in our local contexts or abroad. We can support each other in the face of those who may question the usefulness of our work, particularly when at times it seems more ‘activist’ than ‘scholarly’.⁴

Tilley and Taylor therefore share a similar sentiment to that of Zami and Galiev – that is, the notion that by adopting the scholar-activist identity, we can build a collective or, in Sivanandan's terms, grow our communities of resistance.⁵ Indeed, developing a collective identity functions to situate people with similar praxes together under the same ‘umbrella’, which, in turn, enables their collective identity to be consolidated through participation in collective action.⁶ On this latter point, Tilley and Taylor point to the more concrete ways in which scholar-activism can be brought into being, including via support networks (the importance of which we discuss in Chapter 4). Key here, then, is the idea that by claiming the scholar-activist identity, we can facilitate scholar-activism as a practice, and that this is a collective process.

Problematising the scholar-activist label

Although Zami and Galiev were not alone in highlighting the utility of identifying as a scholar-activist, the term was problematised by participants in a number of ways. In this next part of the chapter, we explore participants’ unease with the constituent parts of the scholar-activist label.

Problematising ‘scholar’

When considering the scholar-activist label, several participants spoke of a sense of discomfort that centred on the ‘scholar’ component specifically. Thomas, a Black early-career academic, exemplified this sense of unease. Having been asked whether he thought of himself as a scholar-activist, he responded:

Yeah, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Epigraph
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: anti-racist scholar-activism and the neoliberal-imperial-institutionally-racist university
• 1: Problematising the ‘scholar-activist’ label: uneasy identifications
• 2: Working in service: accountability, usefulness, and accessibility
• 3: Reparative theft: stealing from the university
• 4: Backlash: opposition to anti-racist scholar-activism within the academy
• 5: Struggle where you are: resistance within and against the university
• 6: Uncomfortable truths, reflexivity, and a constructive complicity
• A manifesto for anti-racist scholar-activism
• Notes
• Index